dynamic difficulty:

in an RPG i start on lvl 1 and i hack and slash at some lvl 1-2 centipedes until im lvl 3 and then i move to the next area. finaly i get to lvl 70 and im powerfull enough to fight a dragon. If i now go back to the starting area i find that the freaking lvl 2 centipede's now has 50 000 hp (where it had 3) it can call down the fires of hell upon me and its normal atacks take away 60% of my HP.

When people mention "dynamic diffuculty" that is usualy what i think of and it completely destroys the game for me. If i play my character better than average i should find the game easier... if i fail it should be alot harder. If a game needs to allow different difficulties then i wont mind a fixed modifier that the player can select at the start of the game.

Oblivion used "dynamic difficulty" and even though it was a great game overall i dropped it as soon as i realised the bandit that was usualy wearing cheap leather armor is now fully equiped with shiny enchanted silver goodness and on lvl 20 i find it as chalanging to kill one of them as i did on lvl 1. I guess alot of people wont agree with me but i find this to be a fatally flawed system.

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Original post by Digital Chaos Hi Lando2, It was really educating reading your post :-) Quote: Original post by Lando2 What I've found is that lowering the rewards for playing on an easier difficulty will counter the impulse to go to lower difficulty. But what If my game is a racing game? Cheers

Alright, just take a look at Forza 3. Their difficulty involves changing the amount of computer support you receive during the race. At the start, you are able to turn on/off assists such as Automatic Braking, Manual/Auto transmission, stability control etc. Playing the game with these assists would lower the amount of money and experience you recieve after the race is done which would make the player adapt to higher levels of play if they wanted more money/exp.

This of course would have to be limited to changing it at the beginning of each race and not during. That would be the only possible way to avoid the pre-finish switch.

Hope it helped.

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Original post by EternityZA dynamic difficulty: in an RPG i start on lvl 1 and i hack and slash at some lvl 1-2 centipedes until im lvl 3 and then i move to the next area. finaly i get to lvl 70 and im powerfull enough to fight a dragon. If i now go back to the starting area i find that the freaking lvl 2 centipede's now has 50 000 hp (where it had 3) it can call down the fires of hell upon me and its normal atacks take away 60% of my HP. When people mention "dynamic diffuculty" that is usualy what i think of and it completely destroys the game for me. If i play my character better than average i should find the game easier... if i fail it should be alot harder. If a game needs to allow different difficulties then i wont mind a fixed modifier that the player can select at the start of the game. Oblivion used "dynamic difficulty" and even though it was a great game overall i dropped it as soon as i realised the bandit that was usualy wearing cheap leather armor is now fully equiped with shiny enchanted silver goodness and on lvl 20 i find it as chalanging to kill one of them as i did on lvl 1. I guess alot of people wont agree with me but i find this to be a fatally flawed system.

You can find such thing in Final Fantasy VIII, and a lot of players I knew loathed it. I think such system is stupid too, because it makes the player's effort in progressing somewhat useless.

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Original post by wirya Quote: Original post by EternityZA dynamic difficulty: in an RPG i start on lvl 1 and i hack and slash at some lvl 1-2 centipedes until im lvl 3 and then i move to the next area. finaly i get to lvl 70 and im powerfull enough to fight a dragon. If i now go back to the starting area i find that the freaking lvl 2 centipede's now has 50 000 hp (where it had 3) it can call down the fires of hell upon me and its normal atacks take away 60% of my HP. When people mention "dynamic diffuculty" that is usualy what i think of and it completely destroys the game for me. If i play my character better than average i should find the game easier... if i fail it should be alot harder. If a game needs to allow different difficulties then i wont mind a fixed modifier that the player can select at the start of the game. Oblivion used "dynamic difficulty" and even though it was a great game overall i dropped it as soon as i realised the bandit that was usualy wearing cheap leather armor is now fully equiped with shiny enchanted silver goodness and on lvl 20 i find it as chalanging to kill one of them as i did on lvl 1. I guess alot of people wont agree with me but i find this to be a fatally flawed system. You can find such thing in Final Fantasy VIII, and a lot of players I knew loathed it. I think such system is stupid too, because it makes the player's effort in progressing somewhat useless.

I wonder if it would be better to either have very low level enemies flee, ignore you or disappear?

I haven't played Oblivion or FF but I know Morrowind only triggered the appearance of certain monsters once you reached certain levels. Maybe the need to disappear, too after you reach certain levels.

Or maybe the whole problem has to do with enemy design and why we fight in the first place. If you kill a bunch of cellar rats and come back at godly level 100, it's incongruent for them to be a challenge but it's also annoying to have to wade through them. But if cellar rats upgraded to mutated, brain exposed psionic rats (D&D had these, can't remember the name) it might make more sense, especially if there was some sort of rationale such as the fact that the rats are being created by a witch or imbalance in magical forces.

Personally I don't think the world should stay static. After all, the player is leveling up, so why not the world? It just shouldn't be even and automatic. I'd laugh if I ran across an enemy I'd developed contempt for only to have him put me down-- it would make me more cautious and make me respect them.

Oblivion's bandits upgrading to platemail might have made more sense if it was both limited and explained, say by telling players that a rag-tag mercenary company is responding to you slaughtering them by getting better gear. Then the world feels more alive, not like it's just waiting to be butchered.

Yeah, the world shouldn't level up automatically. Because :
1. that's annoying, since the player clearly doesn't level up automatically (what kind of game would that be??).
2. that kills the immersiveness of the game world. Nobody wants to live in a world where things seem to be around him with no reason other than just to make his life tough.

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Original post by EternityZA dynamic difficulty: in an RPG i start on lvl 1 and i hack and slash at some lvl 1-2 centipedes until im lvl 3 and then i move to the next area. finaly i get to lvl 70 and im powerfull enough to fight a dragon. If i now go back to the starting area i find that the freaking lvl 2 centipede's now has 50 000 hp (where it had 3) it can call down the fires of hell upon me and its normal atacks take away 60% of my HP. When people mention "dynamic diffuculty" that is usualy what i think of and it completely destroys the game for me. If i play my character better than average i should find the game easier... if i fail it should be alot harder. If a game needs to allow different difficulties then i wont mind a fixed modifier that the player can select at the start of the game. Oblivion used "dynamic difficulty" and even though it was a great game overall i dropped it as soon as i realised the bandit that was usualy wearing cheap leather armor is now fully equiped with shiny enchanted silver goodness and on lvl 20 i find it as chalanging to kill one of them as i did on lvl 1. I guess alot of people wont agree with me but i find this to be a fatally flawed system.

This isn't dynamic difficulty, this is level scaling. It's in Oblivion and Final Fantasy VIII and is generally seen as an illogical nuisance.

Dynamic difficulty is best (and first, I believe) shown in Max Payne 2, where an AI agent is continually monitoring the player's performance. If they find the level far too easy (i.e. they take little damage and plough through enemies) and introduces more enemies with slightly smarter AI, while if they find it too difficult (i.e. they take too much damage and keep dying at the same point) then it lessens the number of enemies spawned. This is also seen in Left 4 Dead through its director agent, which is similar though I'm unaware of its details. These effects are not intrusive or noticeable, and actually work to make the game more enjoyable.

Basically, it works to accommodate the player's skill level by monitoring their progress and adjusting various elements which affect difficulty, without making the game too easy or hard.